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Title: The Long Reach of Cotton in the US South: Tenant Farming, Mechanization, and Low-Skill Manufacturing
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2018
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Abstract: Does structural change always promote economic development? This paper examines the long-run impact of cotton agriculture on development in the US South, focusing on a novel aspect of structural change. Exploiting climate-based variation in cotton production, I show that cotton specialization in the late 19th century had a negative impact on local development to this day. The negative relationship, however, arises only from the second half of the 20th century. I argue the change was caused by cotton mechanization which began in the 1950s. Cotton agriculture was strongly dependent on tenant farmers with little human capital. After the mechanization of cotton production, cotton tenants with low human capital were displaced and absorbed by local manufacturing. Using manufacturing data, I find that labor productivity in manufacturing declined in response to the inflow of cotton tenants. The negative impact on manufacturing productivity persisted in the long-run because of directed technical change. Using census data in the recent period, I show that initial cotton specialization reduced the demand for skilled labor in manufacturing in the long-run. These results illustrate that, through the channel of structural change, human capital distribution within agriculture could affect the patterns of technologies and productivity in industrial sectors.
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Authors: Jung, Yeonha
Publisher: Boston University
Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Natural Resource Management, Other
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